Additional Notes §14
§14 Personal Words and Instructions (2 Tim. 4:9–18)
This section exhibits all the earmarks of a piece of private correspondence from antiquity. The author urges its recipient to come posthaste (v. 9); indicates why he wants him to come (he is alone, vv. 10–11a), who and what to bring (vv. 11b–13), and whom to watch out for along the way (vv. 14–15); and concludes with information as to how things have been going with him (vv. 16–18). On its own all of this is so ordinary as to elicit no surprise from anyone. It would be one more among thousands of letters of its kind from the Hellenistic world.
The element of surprise, of course, comes from the fact that it is not on its own. Rather, it has been preceded by a long appeal for Timothy’s loyalty, which concludes with a solemn charge to keep at his task of ministry and a kind of last will and testament from Paul. But these final words give new perspective to what has preceded. The concern in the appeal was not primarily for the situation in Ephesus (as was 1 Timothy); hence only one tauta (“these things”) imperative (2:14); hence also the reason for 2:2 (“entrust these things to others”), which is not suggested in 1 Timothy. Rather, the appeal was primarily for Timothy himself to be ready to take up the reins after Paul’s death, in light of (a) the spread of heretical/divisive teaching, (b) Paul’s imprisonment and impending death, and (c) Timothy’s own ministry, despite his timidity.
Now Paul returns to the second reason for the letter, first hinted at in the thanksgiving (v. 4, “I want to see you very much”). Paul is lonely in his imprisonment, and this letter is a summons to join him. Tychicus (v. 12), who carried the letter, is thereby dispatched to Ephesus, where he will probably assume Timothy’s duties; and Timothy is to come as quickly as possible. The whole section breathes personal, private concerns (a first person pronoun noun appears in every verse). A pseudepigrapher who created this, especially in light of the other concerns of these letters, would have been an extraordinary genius.
4:9 / Immediately following the announcement of his impending death (vv. 6–8), Paul urgently requests: Do your best (cf. 2:14; 4:21; Titus 3:12) to come to me quickly. Given travel conditions and the length of time involved, these (i.e., impending death and the request for Timothy to come) may seem contradictory. However, as we will note on verses 16–17, Paul has had previous experience with the Roman judicial system, and though he apparently doesn’t expect to be freed, he is well aware of the delays in the system.
This request controls all that is said in the following verses. The urgency is found in the word quickly (tacheōs, “without delay”) and “before winter” in verse 21, as well as in the information about his first defense in verses 16–18. Thus it has considerably different force from the similar request to Titus (3:12).
4:10–11a / Paul proceeds to give the reason for the request (it begins with another explanatory for). All of his co-workers, except Luke, have left him, one dishonorably and others for various reasons.
Demas is mentioned first, perhaps because his departure was the most painful. Little is known of him—although he is well covered in the apocryphal literature—except that he was a co-worker during Paul’s earlier imprisonment (Col. 4:12; Philem. 24) along with four others, including Mark and Luke.
But now he has deserted (the LXX word from Ps. 22:1 that Jesus cried from the cross) me, because he loved this present world. This last phrase is eschatological language (cf. 1 Tim. 4:8; Titus 2:12; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:21), contrasting the present with the coming age, and in this case offers a sharp contrast to Paul, Timothy, and others who “love Christ’s appearing” (v. 8). Why he should go to Thessalonica is unknown. It has no reputation as one of the “hot spots” of the Greco-Roman world; perhaps it was his home town.
Mentioning Demas’ going to Thessalonica reminds Paul of two others who have also left: Crescens (of whom nothing more is known for certain) has gone to Galatia (some early MSS read Gallia, “Gaul,” modern France; but this seems to be a corruption), and Titus to Dalmatia. Probably both of these had gone out on ministries. Galatia, in central Asia Minor, had long been the scene of a Pauline mission. Dalmatia, the coast of ancient Illyricum (Yugoslavia; cf. Rom. 15:19), is up the Adriatic from Nicopolis (see Titus 3:12). Perhaps Titus had gone from there, although the context implies otherwise.
That means, since Erastus stayed in Corinth, Trophimus had been left in Miletus (v. 20), and Tychicus was dispatched to Ephesus (v. 12), that of his co-workers only Luke (cf. Col. 4:14; Philem. 24) is with me. On Luke’s possible role in the composition of these letters, see the Introduction, pp. 26, 31, n. .
Some have argued that the information in these verses stands in contradiction to verse 21. But not so. All of the former are Paul’s co-workers, without whom he seldom ministered (cf. Acts 17:14–18:4; 1 Thess. 3:1–5, for possible exceptions). The people in verse 21 are almost certainly Roman Christians known to Timothy.
4:11b–12 / Next Paul tells Timothy whom (v. 11b) and what (v. 13) to bring along when he comes. At an earlier stage Mark had bailed out during some rough going (Acts 13:13) and had become a point of contention between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:36–41). But Paul’s largeness of character can be seen in the fact that at a later stage Mark had once more become a co-worker (Col. 4:10; Philem. 24). Now he urges Timothy to get Mark (implying that he is not in Ephesus) and bring him with you. And the reason? Because he is helpful to me in my ministry (lit., “he is useful to me for service”). The phrase “for service” (diakonian), although a favorite of Paul’s for the ministry of the gospel (cf. 4:5; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2 Cor. 4:1), is ambiguous here and may refer to personal service (cf. 1 Cor. 16:15). Perhaps a little of both is intended, but the context suggests that at least ministry to his personal needs is involved (cf. 1:16–18 on Onesiphorus).
The reason for wanting Mark to help him is that his former helper, Tychicus, had been sent to Ephesus—at least such is implied by the Greek de (“but”) that joins verse 12 to verse 11 (and therefore does not go back to v. 10 as a memory lapse). Tychicus (cf. Titus 3:12; Col. 4:7; Eph. 6:21–22) is almost certainly the carrier of this letter (thus, I sent is an “epistolary aorist,” meaning “I am sending,” from the perspective of the writer, or “I have sent,” from that of the recipient; cf. Eph. 6:22). One may assume he also was to take over Timothy’s responsibilities.
4:13 / This little request for the cloak and my scrolls, which puts considerable strain on theories of pseudepigraphy, is at once full of interest and historical uncertainties. The most likely reconstruction (understanding, of course, the hypothetical nature of much that is said) is that on his way back to Ephesus, Paul had been arrested, either in Miletus (v. 20, en route from Nicopolis through Corinth?) or Troas itself. There, at the house of Carpus (presumably a believer in that city), he had left his cloak, the heavy woolen garment used by travelers in cold or rainy weather. Now he wants Timothy to bring it (apparently in anticipation of winter; v. 21) and my scrolls. Paul obviously expects Timothy to take the same route (Ephesus to Troas, overland across Macedonia on the Egnatian Way, by ship to Brundisium, and on to Rome).
There has been a great deal of speculation about what Paul meant by my scrolls, especially the parchments. The term biblia (scrolls, “books”) could refer to any kind of literary work, including sacred books (in this case the OT) or even documents of various kinds. The qualifier, especially the parchments, either means what is suggested by this translation (i.e., the specific narrowing down of a general group, as elsewhere in the PE; e.g., 1 Tim. 4:10) or, as T. C. Skeat has argued, it is an equating-defining term (“the books—I mean by that the parchment notebooks”). This latter is probably what is intended. What we cannot know is what they contained (although sentiment will favor OT writings of some kind) or why he made such a request.
4:14–15 / These two verses have long been puzzling—as to what they are doing here. But given that one can make good contextual sense of almost everything in these letters, and that the concern here is with verse 15 and Timothy himself being on his guard against him, the best contextual guess is that the great deal of harm done by Alexander the metalworker against Paul was to have him arrested. This is further supported by the fact that the verb endeiknymi (lit., “show,” “point out,” weakly translated did) was often used with the legal sense of “inform against,” and by the note in verse 15 that he strongly opposed (same verb as in 3:8) our message.
If so, then who was this Alexander the metalworker? He was either the Alexander who, with Hymenaeus, had been excommunicated by Paul (1 Tim. 1:19–20), or the Jew of that name who tried to quell the riot in Ephesus (Acts 19:33–34)—some argue that these refer to the same person—or some other Alexander, otherwise unknown to us, whom Paul makes sure Timothy recognizes by designating him the metalworker. Although it is somewhat speculative, a good case can be made for the first one. After being excommunicated, he had left Ephesus (hence Hymenaeus is joined by Philetus in 2 Tim. 2:17). The mention of having had to leave his coat and books in Troas reminds Paul of the cause of his arrest, Alexander the metalworker, whom he now cautions Timothy also to be on his guard against when he goes through there. In any case, Paul has full confidence in God’s justice and therefore expects Alexander to come under eschatological judgment: The Lord will repay him (the same verb as in v. 8) for what he has done (words reminiscent of Pss. 28:4 and 62:12).
4:16 / Paul now turns from the request for Timothy to come to a brief explanation about his own situation, which has inherent in it the urgency noted in the request. It begins with the prepositional phrase at my first defense, which has been the subject of some debate. However, it simply makes little or no sense for this to refer to an earlier imprisonment (e.g., Acts 28; cf. Colossians, Philemon, Philippians), as most of the early Fathers and earlier exegetes supposed (why inform Timothy of that which he would have known?). Most likely my first defense refers to the present captivity and the Roman juridical practice of a prima action, a preliminary hearing before the emperor or a magistrate, roughly comparable in purpose to a grand jury hearing. This would then be followed by the actual trial. Given the two-year delay after the preliminary hearing during his first imprisonment (Acts 24:1, 23, 27; cf. 28:16, 30), Paul had good reason to expect the same again; hence this letter and the summons for Timothy to join him.
However, on this occasion, circumstances seem to be far more serious. Paul is being kept in chains (1:16; 2:9), and despite being “rescued from the lion’s mouth” (v. 17) at his preliminary hearing, he expects the final outcome to be death (vv. 6–8). Perhaps because of the seriousness of things, therefore, no one came to his support (implying that no one joined him or identified with him; perhaps he meant that he had had no official advocate); indeed everyone deserted him. It is simply idle speculation to ask either what Paul might have been expecting or where such friends as Tychicus or Luke were. From Paul’s own perspective everyone had deserted him; yet like his Lord from the cross (Luke 23:34), on that matter he shows forgiveness—“May it not be held against them!”
4:17 / As always in Paul, however, the final word is God’s. But (an adversative de, in contrast to everyone who deserted) the Lord stood at my side. As usual in Paul and these letters, the Lord refers to Christ. This is not necessarily the language of religious mysticism; rather, it is the language of one who has personally encountered the Living Christ, who is “in Him,” and who has had his own life invaded by the power of the Holy Spirit. For Paul it would have been as natural as breathing for him to experience the presence of the Lord at such a time.
The Lord did two things when he stood by Paul. The first, significantly, had to do with Paul’s gospel. He gave me strength (cf. 2:1; 1 Tim. 1:12), so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. As with the similar preliminary hearing recorded in Acts 24:1–20 (cf. 26:1–32), Paul took full advantage of the inquiry to give the “real” reason for his arrest. The first part of the Greek text literally says, “so that through me the preaching might be fulfilled.” The emphasis is still on the Lord’s enabling: He gave me strength so that through me (in the emphatic position) he might fulfill his own plans. “The preaching might be fulfilled” refers to the apostolic preaching of the gospel reaching the heart of the empire, and it is in that sense, Rome as “the mistress of the nations” (to use Bernard’s phrase), that all the Gentiles were thereby able to hear the gospel.
Secondly, the Lord delivered me (which is implied by the passive, I was delivered) from the lion’s mouth. This metaphor has long been the subject of debate. Satan, Nero, the empire itself, and death have all been suggested for the lion. Most likely the clue lies in the observation of the echoes of Psalm 22 throughout the passage (vv. 9–18). Just as Paul had been deserted (vv. 10, 16; cf. Ps. 22:1), so he had been delivered—and will be delivered (v. 18; cf. Ps. 22:4–5)—from the lion’s mouth (cf. Ps. 22:21). If this is the proper clue, then he would be using the language of the psalm to refer to his being delivered from death.
4:18 / In typical fashion the recent rescue from immediate peril is reflected on theologically. The Lord who rescued me will always rescue me, not from death necessarily, but from every evil attack (cf. the final petition of the Lord’s Prayer), and will bring me safely to (better, “save me for,” or “unto”) his heavenly kingdom. The phrase from every evil attack (lit., “every evil deed,” the opposite of “every good deed,” 2:21; 3:17) can scarcely mean “from the effects of every evil machination,” as the eschatological conclusion of the sentence makes clear, but “from any real power of evil to destroy me.” The reason is simple; the Lord will save me for his own heavenly kingdom. Once again the focus of the letter is on eschatology, in the form of one of Paul’s triumphant certainties: What God has already accomplished in Christ, he will see through to final consummation; the salvation he has begun he will indeed complete.
Such a note of eschatological triumph, not to mention past victories, calls for a doxology (cf. 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:15–16): To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Both the location and the language of this doxology are reminiscent of Philippians 4:20. What a fitting note on which to conclude, given the continuing urgencies of his and Timothy’s present situation!
Although is it certainly not impossible (see D-C or Hanson), the unlikelihood that a pseudepigrapher would have created this information, either from “whole cloth” or from sources, has caused many to opt for a theory of genuine Pauline fragments being worked into a pseudepigraphic work. For the classic presentation of this view, see P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, and Paulines and Pastorals, in which he reworks some things in light of subsequent criticisms. Barrett seems to favor this view.
4:9 / Many also have seen an inherent tension between vv. 9–18 and the rest of the letter. But that is due to the mistaken notions that Paul has told Timothy to stay on at Ephesus to resist the false teachers (e.g., Scott), which he has not (not in this letter at least) or that 2 Timothy like 1 Timothy is also a “church manual,” or at least a “pastor’s manual,” which neither is.
4:10–11a / The notation about Demas is the kind of material the apocryphal Acts thrive on. See, e.g., the Acts of Paul and Thecla 1, 4, 12–14, 16. Some identify him with Demetrius of 3 John (Demas is short for Demetrius), but that is highly unlikely. Others argue that his action was not apostasy; but that seems to be in the interest of saving a prior theological commitment. Polycarp (Philippians 9:1–2) uses these words in such a way that he certainly understood “the love of the present age” to mean apostasy. The contrast, especially with v. 8, is so sharp, it is difficult to give his action a softer interpretation.
Lock (p. 116) has made an interesting correlation between all of vv. 9–18 and Psalm 22. He has perhaps carried it a bit too far, but the correlation seems to be there (see esp. note on v. 17).
4:13 / There is a rather extensive literature on this verse. For a full discussion of the meaning of biblia, see T. C. Skeat, “Early Christian Book Production: Papyri and Manuscripts,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 54–79. On the qualifying phrase especially the parchments, see Skeat, “ ‘Especially the Parchments’: A Note on 2 Timothy iv. 13.”
4:14–15 / Lock and Bernard make the suggestion that Alexander opposed Paul in Rome. Thus these verses are seen to belong to vv. 16–18. But since they serve as a clear warning to Timothy, it makes more sense to locate him at the point of Paul’s arrest.
4:16 / Much of the debate on this text is related to the double questions of authenticity and a second imprisonment. On these questions, see the Introduction.
4:17 / For an analysis of this passage in light of Psalm 22, see Lock (p. 116) and J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (London: SCM, 1959), pp. 331–33.